Richlands rolls past Pender in girls' tny

Friday

DIXON — What can you say about a game in which you win by 41 points and the opponent doesn’t score its first field goal until there are only 59 seconds left — in the fourth quarter?

DIXON — What can you say about a game in which you win by 41 points and the opponent doesn’t score its first field goal until there are only 59 seconds left — in the fourth quarter?

Stumped?

So was Richlands coach Mike Kelly after his Wildcats rolled past Pender 48-7 Thursday to advance to today’s fifth-place game of the Dixon Girls Christmas Classic.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Kelly said.

The Wildcats (4-5) will take on tournament host Dixon (4-8) at 3:30 p.m. today looking to reach .500 heading into the thick of East Central 2-A Conference play. Pender (0-11) will face Wilmington Christian (1-11) for seventh place at 2 p.m.

Richlands hit four of its first eight shots — all by different players — and jumped out to a 12-0 lead against the Patriots, who turned the ball over on each of their first six trips down court. The rest of the game was more of the same on both sides.

“I was happy we were making some shots — and they were wide open looks, but when we’re playing better teams they’re not getting wide open looks,” Kelly said. “And I don’t like the score it was, but we didn’t run the score up on them.”

Pender, which hit a foul shot in the first and second quarters and didn’t score in the third, got its first field goal with 59 seconds left by Saquoia Dixon down low. That made it 48-5 and ended a 0-for-40 shooting streak for the Patriots.

Pender also finished with 43 turnovers.

Richlands was led by Soraya Kornegay with 14 points and Tamaiya Thompson with 11 points and 9 rebounds.

“Our goal is to win tomorrow and at least put us at .500,” Kelly said. “Christmas tournaments, you go two for three…, we can live with that. We’ll be happy with that.”